May 19, 2011

The Green Party called for national support for legislation intoduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (Ind.-Vt.) for a single-payer national health system (Medicare For All) and urged Congress to reject Republican and Democratic plans to scale back Medicare.

“The Sanders bill does what needs to be done — it eliminates the control by health insurance companies over our medical care,” said Dr. John Battista, former Green Party candidate for state representative in Connecticut and co-author of his state’s single-payer legislation in 1999 (the Connecticut Health Care Security Act). “Insurance companies pad the cost of health care by as much as 31% for profits, CEO salaries, and other unnecessary overhead such as managing care, while restricting and denying care to make even more money. As a result, over 45 million Americans have no coverage, millions more have inadequate coverage, and the US has the most expensive, least cost-effective health system of all industrial democracies in the world. For-profit health care has consistently been shown to result in poorer quality health care, and should be abolished, not subsidized. International experience shows that single-payer improves health care while reducing costs, eliminating managed care, and providing increased access.” . . .